surrealism
Peter Dorman
This question occurred to me as I was watching the re-release of
Bunuel's masterful "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie". This is a
high water mark in the surrealist tradition, but Bunuel does not use a
musical score. If had wanted one, where would he have turned?
Martinu is sometimes classified as a surrealist, because he set a few
surrealist texts, but his music itself doesn't *sound* surrealist -- at
least, not to my ears. Also, he fails to capture any of the subversive
intent fundamental to the movement.
If there were such a composer, he or she would have an unsettling,
phantasmagorical sound and a radical political edge (also discernable in
the music). Schulhoff, perhaps? (to pick another Czech...)
Peter
Steven Van Impe
Peter Dorman <dor...@evergreen.edu> asked:
> Does surrealism extend to music; are there any surrealist composers?
<snip>
> If there were such a composer, he or she would have an unsettling,
> phantasmagorical sound and a radical political edge (also discernable in
> the music). Schulhoff, perhaps? (to pick another Czech...)
Stravinsky sounds pretty surreal to me. His 'musical modules' are
recognizable as melodies, but don't always fit onto each other. Dreamlike,
almost primordial figures and sounds. Inspiration drawn from fairy tales.
Don't know about the political aspect, but I can't see political aspects in
Dali or Magritte either.
Steven
Alex Bach Andersen
dateret 30 Sep, forfattede Peter Dorman:
> Does surrealism extend to music; are there any surrealist composers?
We have just heard Marek Janowski perform Mahler 7th here in Copenhagen,
and I believe he described Mahler as a true surrealist in an interview.
For my own part every time I hear Enescos 2nd I feel myself in some kind
of surrealistic state.
--
Alex Bach Andersen, free-lance conductor UIN: 8285066
NodeSats/MusicTypesetting - Acorn RISC PC 600 - 710ARMed
Copenhagen, Denmark http://isa.dknet.dk/~alexbach/
Man is the only animal that blushes, or needs to.
Samuel Vriezen
wrote:
I've heard Messiaen described as such, in particular the Turangalila
symphony. As to Bunuel, Kagel wrote a soundtrack to 'Un Chien
Andalou'. Thirdly, you could also start looking among the
dadaist-related composers (take a broad view: this might include the
music of Duchamp, and works by Satie and Cage).
I think relations to surrealism are most likely found in the
avantgarde. Boulez certainly reminds one of Andre Breton in some ways;
some pieces by Berio have a sort-of-surreal quality (you could see
'Sinfonia' in that light, or electronic pieces such as 'Visage')
The question interests me, but I think it's very dependant on what you
think surrealism should be when it applies to music. Does it have to
do with simulating processes of subconsciously automatic writing, for
instance? Or with what?
Peter Dorman
these questions to chew on.
By surrealism, I'm thinking primarily of the writers and visual artists
who combined a fascination with the subconscious and a commitment to the
radical rejection of social, political, and economic hierarchies. (Yes,
I know many were Communists and therefore supported the autocracy they
didn't know....but I'm not saying they were consistent.) These two
aspects were seen by surrealists as mutually supportive. Perhaps the
main theoretician was Breton.
Kagel and Berio, with their dramatic flair, are somewhat closer to the
Dada end of things. They both have a taste for the absurd (or is it the
Absurd?), especially in their vocal writing. What I look for in a
surrealist, however, is a dissociating effect, drawing the
reader/viewer/listener into a space which is easy to slide into, because
it feels familiar, but which dissolves the rational bearings we normally
rely on. Bunuel certainly does this to great effect.
It is difficult to be precise about this. I think that, if I ever heard
truly surreal music, it would at first sound "normal" to me; I would
half-listen, feeling that I had heard it all before. And then, at some
point, I would realize that my channels were being crossed, and the
music was playing with my mental organization. I think I'd like that!
Messiaen, by the way, is a composer I love very much, but "surrealist"
is not a label I would ever attach to him. His is a very ordered
universe, but so complexly ordered that it seldom feels impoverished.
And it is difficult to think of this believer as a subversive. (For me,
he elevates "escape" to a very high plane.)
Does any of this make sense?
Peter
Samuel Vriezen wrote:
>
> On Sat, 30 Sep 2000 06:47:06 GMT, Peter Dorman <dor...@evergreen.edu>
> wrote:
>
Jim Curtis
"Peter Dorman" <dor...@evergreen.edu> wrote in message
news:39E01D14...@evergreen.edu...
Kinda, but it's kinda like asking about "abstract" music. I would say that
music is abstract and/or surreal because that's what music is. If you paint
a Dali "melting clock" but instead make it look realistic, you can say that
you are bringing surrealism to the Dali work. If you draw a Picasso but
round off the edges and make it look familiar, you are drawing an abstract
of an abstract. Or maybe you are after something not so complicated and
quite familiar where a composer introduces a theme and bounces it around so
that it keeps something of its original appearance but presents new ways of
looking at it along the way. Still, you wouldn't be able to point to the
surreal parts or the real parts because in music, there is nothing you can
call absolute reality.
Samuel Vriezen
wrote:
>I can't say this thread has exactly caught fire, but I'm happy to have
>these questions to chew on.
>
>By surrealism, I'm thinking primarily of the writers and visual artists
>who combined a fascination with the subconscious and a commitment to the
>radical rejection of social, political, and economic hierarchies. (Yes,
>I know many were Communists and therefore supported the autocracy they
>didn't know....but I'm not saying they were consistent.) These two
>aspects were seen by surrealists as mutually supportive. Perhaps the
>main theoretician was Breton.
>
>Kagel and Berio, with their dramatic flair, are somewhat closer to the
>Dada end of things. They both have a taste for the absurd (or is it the
>Absurd?), especially in their vocal writing. What I look for in a
>surrealist, however, is a dissociating effect, drawing the
>reader/viewer/listener into a space which is easy to slide into, because
>it feels familiar, but which dissolves the rational bearings we normally
>rely on. Bunuel certainly does this to great effect.
Though Kagel absurdities make him very reminiscent of dadaism, I still
do think that much of his writing has a link to the dissociating
effect you're thinkin of. Especially if you listen to the pieces that
he did that work by paraphrasing and distorting other musical
traditions, such as the Chorbuch or perhaps Kantrimiusik.
As to Berio, I think he doesn't have so much to do with dadaism. Many
of his pieces are suggestive of 'stream-of-consciousness' approaches,
mainly - that may have their own relations to the surrealist
traditions. Think of his using Joyce, his 'Recital I' which presents a
singer in a nervous breakdown, the use of Beckett in the 3rd movement
(with all those quotes) from Sinfonia.
>It is difficult to be precise about this. I think that, if I ever heard
>truly surreal music, it would at first sound "normal" to me; I would
>half-listen, feeling that I had heard it all before. And then, at some
>point, I would realize that my channels were being crossed, and the
>music was playing with my mental organization. I think I'd like that!
>
>Messiaen, by the way, is a composer I love very much, but "surrealist"
>is not a label I would ever attach to him. His is a very ordered
>universe, but so complexly ordered that it seldom feels impoverished.
>And it is difficult to think of this believer as a subversive. (For me,
>he elevates "escape" to a very high plane.)
>
>Does any of this make sense?
>
You need to listen to Claude Vivier. 'Zipangu', 'Glaubst du an die
Unsterblichkeit der Seele', 'Reves d'un Marco Polo', 'Bouchara',
'Kopernikus'.
Samuel Vriezen
wrote:
>> Does any of this make sense?
>
>Kinda, but it's kinda like asking about "abstract" music. I would say that
>music is abstract and/or surreal because that's what music is. If you paint
>a Dali "melting clock" but instead make it look realistic, you can say that
>you are bringing surrealism to the Dali work. If you draw a Picasso but
>round off the edges and make it look familiar, you are drawing an abstract
>of an abstract. Or maybe you are after something not so complicated and
>quite familiar where a composer introduces a theme and bounces it around so
>that it keeps something of its original appearance but presents new ways of
>looking at it along the way. Still, you wouldn't be able to point to the
>surreal parts or the real parts because in music, there is nothing you can
>call absolute reality.
>
That's precisely why I think composers who work by paraphrasing or
distorting existing materials may fit the bill, such as Kagel and
Berio.
Peter Dorman
Peter
Samuel Vriezen wrote:
>
>
> >It is difficult to be precise about this. I think that, if I ever heard
> >truly surreal music, it would at first sound "normal" to me; I would
> >half-listen, feeling that I had heard it all before. And then, at some
> >point, I would realize that my channels were being crossed, and the
> >music was playing with my mental organization. I think I'd like that!
> >
> >Messiaen, by the way, is a composer I love very much, but "surrealist"
> >is not a label I would ever attach to him. His is a very ordered
> >universe, but so complexly ordered that it seldom feels impoverished.
> >And it is difficult to think of this believer as a subversive. (For me,
> >he elevates "escape" to a very high plane.)
> >
> >Does any of this make sense?
> >
>
Samuel Vriezen
wrote:
>Could you amplify a bit? Vivier is not on my radar.
Claude Vivier, Quebec-born composer, b. 1948 of unknown parents d.
1983 in Paris (murdered). Studied ao. with Stockhausen; traveled
through Asia; both left clear musical influences. Best known for his
harmonic style which is related to spectralism.
His music is primarily homophonic, organized around clearly
recognisable single melodic lines and with a brilliant sense of
rhythmic drive, structure and development. Almost no counterpoint.
These melodies then can be developed into rich, enchanting, exotic
textures, in the later pieces these textures are derived from
harmonies which are based on 'ring-modulation' principles from
electronic music. But I think that while the textural and harmonic
world is most striking and suggestive at first listening, it is
actually his sense of melody and rhythm that keeps the music in its
permanent state of static tension.
The subjects about which he was writing were highly idiosyncratic,
much of it deriving from his personal life - he liked using an
invented language which he had been employing ever since very young.
Some pieces are autobiographic, such as Lonely Child, Journal and the
piece which eerily paralels his own death, 'Glaubst du an die
Unsterblichkeit der Seele?' ('Do you believe in the immortality of the
soul?'). Some of his larger-scale works are concieved as some sort of
ritual, operatic drama, centering around figures that came to have a
deep spiritual significance for him, such as Kopernikus (who disclosed
the secrets of the universe) and Marco Polo (who underwent spiritual
transformation through the discovery of a completely different world).
These two figures became the focus of his 'operas': Kopernikus and the
unfinished 'opera-fleuve' Marco Polo, which actually consists of a
number of concert pieces (Zipangu, Lonely Child, Shiraz, Glaubst du an
die Unsterblichkeit der Seele?).
I've always found listening to Vivier to be a musical experience
totally unlike anything else known in classical music. It is not a
question of unique sounds or forms; it's a question of almost
exhausting tension, carefully maintained suspension of the experience
of time passing. Several times I listened to Zipangu in concert to
find that by the end of the piece, almost unnoticably, all of my
muscles had become tense.
The strangest detail of his life is the story of his death. He died
because he liked to pick up strangers, and especially seems to have
enjoyed the idea of flirting with death by picking up dangerous types.
And one day he was discovered in his apartement stabbed to death. At
that time he was working on Glaubst du an die Unsterblichkeit der
Seele?; in that piece a narrator appears who describes a dream in
which someone named Claude dies in a very similar way: he meets a
young man in the Paris underground who completely fascinates him; he
introduces himself to the man, and after two lines of small talk the
man draws a dagger and plunges it in Claude's heart. It seems that at
the time of Vivier's death 'Glaubst du...' had just progressed to
exactly that moment.
There is a very good recording out on Philips Classics with the
ASKO/Schoenberg Ensemble and Reinbert de Leeuw conducting.
Damien J. Bradley
two words.
JOHN CAGE.
That's about as surreal as you can get.
Damien
Samuel Vriezen
<dbra...@cats.ucsc.edu> wrote:
>two words.
>
>JOHN CAGE.
>
>That's about as surreal as you can get.
I do not agree to this. In Cage's work there's nothing of the free
association subconsciousness-thinking. In a certain way, surrealism
was an exaggerated form of subjective genius-type thinking in the line
of Rimbaud and the symbolists, whereas Cage pursued the greatest
possible degree of objectivism, trying to downplay personality as much
as possible.
Samuel Vriezen
<gmc...@REMOVETHISmcgath.com> wrote:
>In article <39e5982...@news.xs4all.nl>,
>s...@xs4all.nl.getridofthisone (Samuel Vriezen) wrote:
>
>> I do not agree to this. In Cage's work there's nothing of the free
>> association subconsciousness-thinking.
>
>The words "the free association subconsciousness" are unnecessary in
>that statement.
Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo wiiiiiiiiittttttttyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!
I think I'm going to shoot myself.